Corporate Team Building Games

Team building training is a great way to develop key workplace skills like collaboration and communication. You can energize your training with corporate team building games that make training a blast!

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It’s encouraging to see more leaders identify human connection as a primary factor contributing to their organization’s sustained success. Fortune magazine recently recognized Theo Epstein, President, Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball and the Cubs organization, as #1 on its world’s greatest leaders list. Last year the Cubs won the World Series and broke the franchise’s 108-year World Series title drought, the longest in professional sports.

According to Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated writer and author of The Cubs Way:

“Theo Epstein, once known as the number-crunching wizard who broke the championship curse of the Boston Red Sox, built [the Cubs] with an emphasis on people who would create the right ethos. The story of the Cubs’ championship would not just be about 2016. It would be timeless. It would also be about the power of human connection—teammates to teammates, teammates to fans, generation to generation.”

Previously I’ve written about Cubs manager Joe Maddon and the Chicago Cubs’ culture of connection. In a future article I will present a detailed description of the Cubs’ culture based on Verducci’s observations in The Cubs Way.

For now I’d like to focus on a pattern I’m seeing. As I read through Fortune’s world’s greatest leaders list, it jumped out at me that a number of the top leaders recognized are intentional connectors who create cultures of connection.

For example, note that the #3 rated leader is Pope Francis who is well known for being intentional about connecting with people and, I believe, is working to create a culture of connection in the Catholic Church.

The #4 rated leader is Melinda Gates who is without doubt an intentional connector. I highly recommend watching Ms. Gates’ outstanding commencement speech at Duke University, her alma mater, in which she describes the importance of connection to thrive in life.

In many fields, leaders and thought leaders are discovering the superpower of connection. Consider healthcare. Kate Otto, author of Everyday Ambassador and co-founder of the organization Everyday Ambassador, recently wrote an outstanding article published in Clinical Correlations: The New York University Langone Online Journal of Medicine. Ms. Otto makes the case that the scientific research shows how damaging chronic loneliness is to health so physicians should be looking for signs of it in their patients. She recommends that physicians on the front lines of medicine inquire about a patient’s state of social connection by asking questions such as “Do you live alone? Who will visit you here in the hospital? With whom do you share your private worries and fears? How much of your week do you spend with other people?” She goes on to recommend developing therapeutic relationships that include empathizing with patients.

Are You Tapping Your Superpower?

I frequently note that Matthew Lieberman, the University of California at Los Angeles neuroscientist and author of Social, describes connection as a superpower that makes you smarter, happier and more productive. This raises the question: Are you tapping into your superpower of connection?

Research confirms that most people are not. The former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said the most common illness today is a lack of connection. This is unlikely to change, given current trends and the rise of social media and remote work. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, recently wrote about research that showed social media was making us lonelier. The rise of remote work is contributing to loneliness too.

Is Your Team and Organization Tapping Its Superpower?

Connection is also a superpower for teams and organizations because it boosts employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity and innovation. Most teams and organizations are not tapping into their superpower of connection. Gallup research shows two-thirds of American workers don’t feel connected at work.

In their Harvard Business Review article on creating a positive workplace culture, Stanford’s Emma Seppala and University of Michigan’s Kim Cameron recommend four connection-producing practices that boost performance of a team or organization:

“A large number of empirical studies confirm that positive social connections at work produce highly desirable results. For example, people get sick less often, recover twice as fast from surgery, experience less depression, learn faster and remember longer, tolerate pain and discomfort better, display more mental acuity, and perform better on the job. Conversely, research by Sarah Pressman at the University of California, Irvine, found that the probability of dying early is 20% higher for obese people, 30% higher for excessive drinkers, 50% higher for smokers, but a whopping 70% higher for people with poor social relationships. Toxic, stress-filled workplaces affect social relationships and, consequently, life expectancy.”

Your Mindset: Connection Is an Extraordinary Opportunity

Although the decline of connection in modern society may seem depressing to some, I want you to see it as an opportunity. By increasing connection in your life and the lives of your family, friends and colleagues, you will thrive and improve the lives of those around you. By promoting connection in your organization, you will be boosting its performance and contribution to society.

To get the conversation started on the importance of boosting connection in your organization and how to go about it, I invite you and your colleagues to join my colleague Todd Hall, chief scientist at E Pluribus Partners, and me on a webcast titled “Employee Engagement: Using Your Vision, Value and Voice,” on May 24 from 2:00-3:00 pm EDT. You can find details and signup information here.

Mark this day, connect more with others and watch what happens. I promise that over time, you will see that connection affects much more than the bottom line. As you experience greater peace, hope and joy that comes from having an abundance of connection in your life, you will have discover wealth of even greater value.

Michael Lee Stallard is President of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a co-founder of ConnectionCulture.com. He speaks and teaches at a wide variety of organizations including Google, Johnson & Johnson, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, NASA, Qualcomm, Scotiabank, and the U.S. Treasury Department. Texas Christian University created the TCU Center for Connection Culture based on Michael’s work.

Todd W. Hall, Ph.D. is Chief Scientist for E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and consulting firm based in Greenwich, Connecticut. A research and clinical psychologist, Todd has 20+ years experience helping individuals and teams thrive. He has been privileged to consult with start-ups, government agencies, non-profits, and for-profits, including the National Institute for Mental Health, the U.S. Army, the Salvation Army, VHA Corp., New York City Leadership Center, Moody Press, Pruvio, and numerous universities.

You’ve heard it so many times before, that “teamwork makes the dream work.” Now, you have your team place, but you are still not seeing the results you want. You know you need to learn how to make your team successful.

Sound familiar? In my recent video, you will learn some quick tips on how to make your team successful, build a winning team, retain that team, and make them world class in everything they do.

How to make your team successful:

Tip #1: Invest in your team’s success

What your team truly wants is to feel like you have as much commitment and drive in helping them to succeed as you have for them in the goals you’ve laid out for them.

Your team wants to see that you have faith in them and that you are willing to go the extra mile to help them succeed.

Tip #2: Have a roadmap for success

You need to provide your team with clear directions, specific strategies, and a play-by-play game plan that can realistically help them to achieve the goals you set out for them.

Show your team that it is possible to achieve these goals and provide them guidance to reach them.

Let them know that you are there to help them grow and develop. Tell them you are invested in their success just as much as you are invested in your own success.

Tip #3: Have checks and balances

Make sure that you have checks and balances and that you are inspecting what you expect in real time. Give your team a set of accountabilities that they are measured to frequently.

This will help to show your team whether they are on track with their goals.

Tip #4: Give feedback

Provide your team with both constructive and positive feedback based on their performance and do it regularly.

This will help you to grow your team, make them better, and give them a better affinity towards you.

Kelly Roach is the founder of Kelly Roach Coaching, a rapid growth coaching and consulting company for business owners, entrepreneurs, and executive leaders.

A few years ago Kelly was successful, but was yearning for more. She knew she was meant for something bigger, and wanted to create a business that allowed her to serve others, make a difference, and create unlimited income while doing it. After personally producing more than $30 million in sales in record time, Kelly charged to the top of a global Fortune 500 firm, netting 7 promotions in 8 years. That’s when she launched Kelly Roach International, to help businesses do the extraordinary by using innovative strategies to rapidly increase productivity and profits.

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The competition for the attention of our audience is more fierce now than at any other time in human history. There are just so many distractions; push notifications, instant messages, snap chats, wearable technology that beeps and buzzes, not to mention the plethora of streaming services that lure us in and turn us into binge-watching zombies. Our brains are quite literally straining with all the choice and our students are being conditioned to seek “just in time” solutions that tend to be non-linear in their application. Put simply, they want what they want, when they want it.

So how do we hold the attention of these students and help them to be “present” in our training? There are some hints from the latest brain science research that can help us on the journey. Here are some of the key concepts:

Learning is an active process. Whenever possible students should be involved in their own learning. Rather than being passengers, we need them to be drivers. Learning is not something that happens to them, it should be something that happens with them. Whilst there is nothing new in this narrative, the latest research continues to support that learner involvement is critical in reinforcing long term retention. However, with an increased focus on assessment and compliance, some organisations are forgetting that the learner experience should be central to the program rather than teaching to tests and capturing narrow evidence. Students are more likely to burn new pathways in the brain if they can connect the theory to a personal experience. In addition to this, participants must have adequate rest, health and physical ability to undertake the tasks we set.

Psychologists and neuroscientists who study the brain tell us that the brain goes into a trance approximately 30% of the time, even when doing crucial tasks. Therefore, when delivering training, re-engaging the brain is necessary not optional. This means that when we design learning programs, we should include activities and actions that stretch and energise the brain on a regular basis. These could include non-content related exercises like puzzles, brain-teasers and word problems as well as content-specific activities such as poster-work, scenario development and fault-finding tasks.

It is important that we recognise the myth of multi-tasking. Only about 2% of people in the world can generally do more than one task well, simultaneously. For the rest, they multi-switch. This means there is a great chance of missing key learning when switching between each task and this will have a profound impact on both comprehension and retention. The brain is already wired for compartmentalisation and we can support this but breaking key content down in to easily digestible parts and then focusing on one part at a time. We should also be careful not to create situations where we inadvertently require students to multi-task. For example, asking them to watch a video clip and take notes. In this instance, it would be more effective to show a portion of the video and then pause it at regular intervals to allow students to discuss the key points at their tables and then write down a summary in their own words.

Finally, getting their full attention when learning something for the first time, will make a huge difference to the success of their learning.

Marc Ratcliffe is an award winning trainer, author and education entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of MRWED Training and Assessment, a private Australian Training Organization that specializes in Trainer Training. Marc continues to push the boundaries of “edu-tainment” and believes that participant interaction and fun are integral to the learning experience. He has been involved in Workplace and Vocational Education for 24 years and is an in-demand conference presenter and workshop facilitator having conducted more than 300 programs in a dozen countries since 2000.

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Today’s workplace is increasingly made up of diverse teams whose members span many cultures, departments and locations. To gain the commitment and cooperation of these teams, leaders must rely on their influence. There are many ways to influence, but some are significantly more effective than others. Our own research shows the most successful leaders use four core influencing behaviors: Reasoning, consulting, collaborating and inspiring.

Many leaders use these behaviors without even thinking about them. However, they may not be taking into account other important factors that determine effectiveness, such as the situation and cultural context. Recognizing the behaviors they use most often and understanding what they can do to improve will help them be more effective influencers.

This interactive guide outlines the fundamentals of effective influencing behaviors, when to use them and how influence varies across cultures and gender. It’s based on our own research and research from others in this area. Take the first step toward empowering your leaders by exploring the guide and sharing it with your teams.

Rick Lepsinger is president of OnPoint Consulting, a top organizational and leadership development consulting firm that offers a variety of training and assessment solutions to help cross-functional teams enhance performance. To learn more, visit onpointconsultingllc.com.

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Moving in the direction you’re aiming for at work, be it by promotion, title change or new responsibilities, will generally make you feel great. We spend a lot of time and energy worrying about our careers and discussing ways in which we can personally move forward, learn and grow.

But one thing that is sometimes overlooked when discussing our careers is the relationships in our workplace. Positive relationships can have powerful effects on how you (and your colleagues) feel at work.

I’m not talking about those relationships where you can chat with one another easily (though that in itself is no small thing). I’m talking about the comfortable — and beneficial — relationship that colleagues can achieve when both parties are working together to do more Great Work.

As a manager, the best thing you can do is ensure that you maintain such a relationship with your employees. Here are three tips on how to do that.

Tame Your Advice Monster

Many of us have the tendency to give advice when someone comes to us with a problem. It’s only natural, especially in a leadership role, to want to help with an issue we’ve been presented. But when we jump in with advice, we often don’t get to the heart of the issue because we’ve already set off trying to fix what we think is wrong. When you do this, the other person might feel like you’ve taken over, despite your good intentions, or they might feel that your advice is unhelpful. Neither option is good for your relationship.

Edgar Schein, in his book Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help, explains that when you jump in to help someone, you essentially put them “one down” in the relationship, and put yourself “one up.” In doing so, you categorize yourself as the smart one and the person in control. This status imbalance can have damaging effects on a relationship, as you can imagine.

The best way to increase the comfortability of the situation, and therefore create a better relationship, is to let the other person talk.

Ask Questions

If you can manage to avoid giving advice, you can then ask your employees coaching questions — questions to find out what they really need from you — instead. By asking questions, you’ll encourage them to come up with their own answers and new options, and you’ll be promoting personal development in the workplace.

Not only does asking questions keep you curious, and therefore make the other party feel valued, but it also encourages learning. Having people answer questions increases their chance of remembering the information involved, and they will likely remember the conversation with you as being productive — and that’s another step toward an especially positive relationship.

Coach for Development

Tips #1 and #2 are part of an overall coaching plan. In my book The Coaching Habit, I outline seven questions you can use to effectively coach your employees in 10 minutes or less. Coaching for performance is about addressing and fixing everyday issues. That kind of coaching makes you a helpful manager, but it’s your ability to coach for development that will make your relationship important to others.

Coaching for development is about coaching the person dealing with the everyday issues. This can begin with your simply asking questions, and it is the type of coaching that encourages people to learn, improve and grow. It makes people happy to have you on their team — which can take your relationships from good to great.

Author of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever, Michael Bungay Stanier is the Senior Partner and Founder of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. It is best known for its coaching programs, which give busy managers practical tools to coach in 10 minutes or less.